programs & services
Black Teacher Project is dedicated to providing culturally relevant and affirming professional development in Black racial affinity that supports the professional, financial, physical, and mental thriving of Black teachers so that they can lead for change that results in more equitable and liberating systems and experiences for themselves and the students and families they serve. We approach our Black teacher-facing work through four pillars that emerged directly out of engagements with and feedback from our participants.
Additionally, we recognize that manifesting our mission and vision requires working with communities and leaders beyond individual Black teachers. In order to foster enabling conditions for teacher sustainability and thriving, we also provide a myriad of consulting and professional development services for TK-12 school, district, and systems leaders.
All of the professional development and consulting services found on this page can be customized to fit your organization’s unique context.
FOR BLACK TEACHERS
(Black Affinity-Based Leadership, Instructional, & Wellness Development)
An 18-month experience focused on examining, innovating and imbuing new models for participants’ context that foster wellness, liberated learning, and increased opportunity for marginalized students. Fellows build a supportive community of restoration and renewal through critical friendship, action learning, and shared experience. Each team receives coaching to support the planning and implementation of a co-created action learning plan addressing an equity challenge in their context and their unique leadership aspirations. BTP’s Fellowship is our most intensive and comprehensive program and we are proud to have just completed our 4th cohort in June 2024! This is typically a grant subsidized program which allows us to compensate Fellows with a $1000 stipend per semester for their labor.
A three-day in-person or four-session virtual course where Black teachers and educators deepen commitment and agency in their work while developing strategies for leadership and sustainability. Black teachers receive caring guidance and facilitation to collaboratively explore the personal and professional challenges they face as Black school-based educators. This course seeks to provide Black teachers resources and support aligned to the Black Identity Development, Wellness, and Black Leadership for Liberation pillars. This program structure can be customized for district professional development needs.
A multi-session, virtual or in-person course for teams of 2 to 4 Black teachers. This offering provides a community of practice where Black classroom teachers are guided through a process that draws upon Liberatory Design, the Bridge to Thriving Framework, and other healing-informed approaches to center student voices and experiences in creating conditions for wellness in their classrooms. By the end of the offering, Black teachers will co-design healing-centered engagements specific to students’ needs and contexts. Participants also receive coaching in between sessions to support their design work. This program structure can be customized for in-person or virtual district professional development needs.
We’re currently accepting applications to an open-registration Black Teacher Design Lab! Applications are due Friday, September 13, 2024.
This offering can be structured as a four-session virtual course or a two-day, in-person workshop where Black teachers are guided to explore and implement research-based strategies that put the experiences, history, culture, and voices of their students at the center of their instructional practices. Participants have the opportunity to design, test, and refine a culturally responsive teaching prototype that affirms, empowers, and propels their students’ learning. This program structure can be customized for district professional development needs.
Black Teacher Wellness Convenings are customized, virtual or in-person, courses that immerse Black teachers in a cocoon of Black love where participants will reconnect to ancestral wisdom and their humanity as Black educators and leaders. This experiential learning space invites Black educators to make meaning of and apply the Bridge to Thriving, Four Pivots, and Healing frameworks to create and support conditions for personal, professional, and classroom wellness. By trying on mindsets and practices that cultivate and enrich their thriving inside and outside of schools, attendees will build capacity for continuing Black educators’ legacy of taking action towards a liberated future.
Wellness sessions & convenings can be customized for district engagements. Customization options include:
90 minute workshop
3 hour workshop
Two day workshop
Two 3-4 hour sessions
4 -6 session series (2.5-3 hours per session)
The Black Teacher Project Text Study is a space where Black teachers are invited to deepen their practice in fellowship with one another. Guided by a selected text or series, this group supports Black teachers to be in community and reflect on their teaching practice in a brave Black affinity space. The group uplifts participants’ experiences as Black educators and provides a place for them to be dynamic leaders. This collaborative environment bring great returns to the classroom both directly when teachers observe, notice and reflect on their teaching experiences, and indirectly through the restoration, inspiration, and revigoration teachers receive. The BTP text study is a community of practice designed to be a Black teacher-led offering where BTP staff support the group’s facilitators in curating a structure and agendas that work for their context.
The Black Teacher Inquiry Group supports Black teachers in continuing to deliver excellent education by providing them with the necessary time and space to further develop their pedagogy, find support from peers, and share best practices for creating equitable classrooms and culturally responsive pedagogy. This community of practice is designed to be a Black teacher-led offering where BTP staff support the group’s facilitators in curating a structure and agendas that work for their context.
This is a three-hour workshop for Black teachers looking for new teaching placements. Through self-reflection and engaging with specific tools and strategies, participants in this offering will be able to better recognize whether or not a potential school is an appropriate match for them. Participants will also gain exposure to important practices for applications, interviews and other parts of the job search process. Navigating the Job Search is a great asset for teacher education programs looking to support their Black teachers in finding job placements that foster a long-term teaching career.
Whether you’re a long-time BTP program participant, or this is your first interaction with BTP, we encourage you to lean into this tool and community to support the thriving of you and your fellow Black teachers! Our goal for this platform is to increase Black teachers’ capacity to network and share information with each other. Our vision is to co-create a space of joyful and meaningful community for Black teachers across the country. This is a curated space by and for current, TK-12 Black teachers. Discussion areas and resources include: Community Connections; Events & Opportunities; Hiring & Job Openings; Pedagogy & Curriculum. Please invite Black teachers in your network to join by sharing this application link:
The Black Teacher Speaker Room is an opportunity for Black teachers to share their stories. In this time of rapid change and important movement building, it is imperative that we pause to reflect, share, and honor our voices as educators.
Our stories hold the answer to our path forward; our stories are keys to our future. Our sense of belonging is built within our stories. Our resistance to everyday routine is strengthened through the bond of our collective voice. Our movement is fortified by the collective, and our history is enriched when we share.
FOR TK-12 SCHOOL, DISTRICT & SYSTEMS LEADERS
(Enabling Conditions for Teacher Sustainability & Thriving)
Since the outset of COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen a precipitous drop in overall teacher retention and Black teachers in particular are rapidly and disproportionately leaving the profession. This data is especially alarming due to the plethora of research that illustrates the positive impact Black teachers have on all students’ success. Given this context, we offer this opportunity for administrators and hiring managers to explore key questions that affect Black teacher recruitment and retention. What actions are you taking to encourage Black teachers to want to work and stay in your school or district? How might you create conditions that both invite Black teachers into your school community and allow them to thrive and serve students to the best of their ability?
This three hour workshop is designed to support school leaders in learning best practices to recruit, hire, and retain Black teachers. In this experiential session, attendees will be guided to gain a deeper understanding of the historical and current context of Black teachers’ work and their impact on the thriving of all students. Participants will assess their current efforts and learn to use an equity lens to implement more effective recruiting, hiring, and sustaining practices. This is an interactive session where you will engage in thought partnership and receive feedback from other participants in multiple breakout sessions. Please note that this is not a racial affinity-based service; it is OPEN TO ALL racial identities.
This offering can be customized for your organization, and complementary equity coaching is available to support your recruitment, hiring, and retention efforts.
Our listening session and assessment service is a great option for school, district, and systems leaders who are committed to supporting and retaining their Black teachers, but need guidance on where/how to start. In order to support these leaders in fostering conditions that enable sustainability, BTP staff interviews and/or holds a focus group with Black teachers (& other Black staff if needed) to gain insight about their experiences in the district or specific school. Subsequently, we conduct an asset and needs assessment, which includes provision of a report that summarizes our findings and recommendations.
This service offers fully customizable support to create racial affinity groups for your school, district, or system and will help leaders identify and utilize resources and strategies that allow the group’s focus to shift with the needs of participants, while staying focused on the agreed upon goals. BTP staff will support leaders to understand common barriers that impede the sustainability and thriving of their racial affinity groups and navigate challenges in a complex system.
Cultivating and Sustaining Equity-Centered Racial Affinity Groups for Your Staff consulting can be applied to a variety of organizations including TK-12 education leaders, foundations, technical assistance providers, teacher residencies, and institutions of higher education.
In this fully customizable community of practice, system leaders focus on creating the enabling conditions for teachers and students to thrive, strengthening the leadership capacities necessary to stay tethered to priorities and commitments that challenge inequities and support academic achievement and increase teacher retention.
As part of this service, BTP staff will guide participants in identifying collective goals for the group. Some outcomes for participants include:
- Building skill, knowledge and capacity to lead, design, test and learn from approaches to creating the necessary conditions for teacher and student success.
- Identify where critical and honest conversations about systemic change, race, identity, equity, and power dynamics are necessary and gain support to host these conversations.
- Strengthen the relational trust that tethers people across your schools and/or system together and to your equity vision and goals.
- Build common language and shared understanding of the opportunities and tensions involved in delivering on your commitments to high student achievement, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.
- Develop an equity lens and approach to examining internal systems, operations, culture and ways of working that are aligned with core values and commitments.
- Deepen the level of discourse you engage in with each other about the impact of systemic oppression
- Revisit and perhaps reimagine organizational structures and processes that may support or inhibit honest dialogue, collaborative learning and relational trust.
- Develop and sharpen skills for supporting the learning, growth, development, wellness and sustainability of teachers to successfully educate and care for all students – especially those most vulnerable and furthest from opportunity.
- Collectively problem-solving on critical issues and challenges related to serving your most vulnerable students (especially underserved Black students).
This service offers fully customizable Racial Equity Coaching for system leaders to provide support on a just-in-time basis to manage tensions, attend to unproductive dynamics, and provide thinking partnership to address to dilemmas. Our coaching provides access to resources and tools for staying focused on the needs of students and teachers and the necessary conditions for their improved experience and outcomes related to equity challenges within a school, district, or system.
Racial Equity Coaching can be applied to a variety of organizations including TK-12 education, foundations, technical assistance providers, teacher residencies, and institutions of higher education. Coaching can be added as a complementary service to any of our other TK-12 professional development or consulting offerings.
Please email [email protected] for inquires about booking Dr. Micia Mosely as a guest speaker. Speaker fees range from $5,000-$10,000 depending on factors such as schedule, location of event, travel accommodations, audience group size, length of presentation, inquiry party’s budget, etc.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT & CONSULTING COSTS
- In-person service costs vary depending on the number of sessions, planning time required for customization, and travel time for facilitators. Large groups (over 60) may require additional facilitators. In-person services typically require costs for travel fees, travel time, and materials; these costs can be included in an overall contract amount or billed based on actual expenses.
- Below are two cost samples for in-person engagements:
- 1 half-day (3-4 hours) session with 2 facilitators | $7,000 – $11,000
- 2 full-day sessions (6-8 hours) on consecutive days with 2 facilitators | $24,000 – $30,000
- Below are two cost samples for in-person engagements:
- Virtual service costs are dependent on the length, number of sessions to be delivered, and planning time required for customizations needs.
- Below are two cost samples for virtual engagements:
- 1 three-hour session with 2 facilitators | $5,000 – $6,750
- 2 full-day (6 hour) sessions with two facilitators | $20,000 – $25,000
- Below are two cost samples for virtual engagements:
- Finalized cost, staffing, and schedule for both in-person and virtual services are dependent on the specific needs of your organization.
To learn more about receiving customized professional development, consulting, or other services for your district / organization, please email [email protected].